Economic Policy Review

Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic September 2008 September Volume 14 Number 2 14 Number Volume Policy Review Special Issue: The Economics of Payments ECONOMIC POLICY REVIEW EDITOR Kenneth D. Garbade COEDITORS Mary Amiti Adam B. Ashcraft Robert W. Rich Asani Sarkar EDITORIAL STAF F Valerie LaPorte Mike De Mott Michelle Bailer Karen Carter PRODUCTION STAFF Carol Perlmutter David Rosenberg Jane Urry The Economic Policy Review is published by the Research and Statistics Group of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York. Articles undergo a comprehensive refereeing process prior to their acceptance in the Review. The views expressed are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect the position of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York or the Federal Reserve System. www.newyorkfed.org/research Federal Reserve Bank of New York Economic Policy Review September 2008 Volume 14 Number 2 Special Issue: The Economics of Payments Contents 3Introduction James McAndrews Theoretical Models of Money and Payments Articles: 7 Intraday Liquidity Management: A Tale of Games Banks Play Morten L. Bech Over the last few decades, most central banks, concerned about settlement risks inherent in payment netting systems, have implemented real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems. Although RTGS systems can significantly reduce settlement risk, they require greater liquidity to smooth nonsynchronized payment flows. Thus, central banks typically provide intraday credit to member banks, either as collateralized credit or priced credit. Because intraday credit is costly for banks, how intraday liquidity is managed has become a competitive parameter in commercial banking and a policy concern of central banks. This article uses a game-theoretical framework to analyze the intraday liquidity management behavior of banks in an RTGS setting. The games played by banks depend on the intraday credit policy of the central bank and encompass two well-known paradigms in game theory: “the prisoner's dilemma” and “the stag hunt.” The former strategy arises in a collateralized credit regime, where banks have an incentive to delay payments if intraday credit is expensive, an outcome that is socially inefficient. The latter strategy occurs in a priced credit regime, where postponement of payments can be socially efficient under certain circumstances. The author also discusses how several extensions of the framework affect the results, such as settlement risk, incomplete information, heterogeneity, and repeated play. 25 An Economic Analysis of Liquidity-Saving Mechanisms Antoine Martin and James McAndrews A recent innovation in large-value payments systems has been the design and implementation of liquidity-saving mechanisms (LSMs), tools used in conjunction with real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems. LSMs give system participants, such as banks, an option not offered by RTGS alone: they can queue their outgoing payments. Queued payments are released if some prespecified event occurs. LSMs can reduce the amount of central bank balances necessary to operate a payments system as well as quicken settlement. This article analyzes the performance of RTGS systems with and without the addition of an LSM. The authors find that, in terms of settling payments early, these mechanisms typically outperform pure RTGS systems. However, there are times when RTGS systems can be preferable to LSMs, such as when many banks that send payments early in RTGS choose to queue their payments when an LSM is available. The authors also show that the design of a liquidity-saving mechanism has important implications for the welfare of system participants, even in the absence of payment netting. In particular, the parameters specified determine whether the addition of an LSM increases or decreases welfare. 41 Divorcing Money from Monetary Policy Todd Keister, Antoine Martin, and James McAndrews Many central banks implement monetary policy in a way that maintains a tight link between the stock of money and the short-term interest rate. In particular, their implementation procedures require that the supply of reserve balances be set precisely in order to implement the target interest rate. Because bank reserves play other key roles in the economy, this link can create tensions with other important objectives, especially in times of acute market stress. This article considers an alternative approach to monetary policy implementation—known as a “floor system”—that can reduce or even eliminate these tensions. The authors explain how this approach, in which the central bank pays interest on reserves at the target interest rate, “divorces” the supply of money from the conduct of monetary policy. The quantity of bank reserves can then be set according to the payment or liquidity needs of financial markets. By removing the opportunity cost of holding reserves, the floor system also encourages the efficient allocation of resources in the economy. Empirical Analyses of Trends in Large-Value Payments Articles: 59 Global Trends in Large-Value Payments Morten L. Bech, Christine Preisig, and Kimmo Soramäki Globalization and technological innovation are two major forces affecting the financial system and its infrastructure. Perhaps nowhere are these trends more apparent than in the internationalization and automation of payments. While the effects of globalization and technological innovation are most obvious on retail payments, the influence is equally impressive on wholesale, or interbank, payments. Given the importance of payments and settlement systems to the smooth operation and resiliency of the financial system, it is important to understand the potential consequences of these developments. This article presents ten major long-range trends in the settlement of large-value payments worldwide. The trends are driven by technological innovation, structural changes in banking, and the evolution of central bank policies. The authors observe that banks, to balance risks and costs more effectively, are increasingly making large-value payments in real-time systems with advanced liquidity-management and liquidity-saving mechanisms. Moreover, banks are settling a larger number of foreign currencies directly in their home country by using offshore systems and settling a greater number of foreign exchange transactions in Continuous Linked Settlement Bank or through payment-versus-payment mechanisms in other systems. The study also shows that the service level of systems is improving, through enhancements such as longer operating hours and standardized risk management practices that adhere to common standards, while transaction fees are decreasing. Payments settled in large-value payments systems are more numerous, but on average of smaller value. Furthermore, the overall nominal total value of large-value payments is increasing, although the real value is declining. 83 Changes in the Timing Distribution of Fedwire Funds Transfers Olivier Armantier, Jeffrey Arnold, and James McAndrews The Federal Reserve’s Fedwire funds transfer service—the biggest large-value payments system in the United States—has long displayed a peak of activity in the late afternoon. Theory suggests that the concentration of late-afternoon Fedwire activity reflects coordination among participating banks to reduce liquidity costs, delay costs, and credit risk; as these costs and risk change over time, payment timing most likely will be affected. This article seeks to quantify how the changing environment in which Fedwire operates has affected the timing of payment value transferred within the system between 1998 and 2006. It finds that the peak of the timing distribution has become more concentrated, has shifted to later in the day, and has actually divided into two peaks. The authors suggest that these trends can be explained by a rise in the value of payments transferred over Fedwire, the settlement patterns of the private settlement institutions that use the system, and an increase in industry concentration. Although the study’s results provide no specific evidence of heightened operational risk attributable to activity occurring later in the day, they point to a high level of interaction between Fedwire and private settlement institutions. 113 The Timing and Funding of CHAPS Sterling Payments Christopher Becher, Marco Galbiati, and Merxe Tudela Real-time gross settlement (RTGS) systems such as CHAPS Sterling require large amounts of liquidity to support payment activity. To meet their liquidity needs, RTGS participants borrow from the central bank or rely on incoming payments from other participants. Both options can prove costly—the latter in particular if participants delay outgoing payments until incoming ones arrive. This article presents an empirical analysis of the timing and funding of payments in CHAPS. The authors seek to identify the factors driving the intraday profile of payment activity and the extent to which incoming funds are used as a funding source, a process known as liquidity recycling. They show that the level of liquidity recycling in CHAPS is high and stable throughout the day, and attribute this result to several features of the system. First, the settlement of time- critical payments provides liquidity to the system early in the settlement day; this liquidity can be recycled for the funding of less urgent payments. Second, CHAPS throughput guidelines provide a centralized coordination mechanism, in effect limiting any tendency toward payment delay. Third, the relatively small direct membership of

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